Christine Otishttp://christineotis.com
Professional Writer, Editor and Visual Artist Fri, 05 Jan 2018 17:15:18 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8This is part of my website, which is an artists' hub about the process, marketing and business of creativity. I conduct interviews with writers, artists, and people in the creative realm. It's about their stories, their interests, and how they achieved success.Christine OtisnoChristine Otisotis.christine@gmail.comotis.christine@gmail.com (Christine Otis)2016Interviews with writers and artists about their craftChristine Otishttp://christineotis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/christine-otis-logo-itunes.pnghttp://christineotis.com
otis.christine@gmail.comInterviews with writers and artists about their craft. This is part of my website, which is an artists' hub about the process, marketing and business of creativity. I conduct interviews with writers, artists, and people in the creative realm. It's about their stories, their interests, and how they achieved success.Gallery Night at the Art Gallery in Napleshttp://christineotis.com/gallery-night-at-the-art-gallery-in-naples/
http://christineotis.com/gallery-night-at-the-art-gallery-in-naples/#respondTue, 13 Sep 2016 20:42:26 +0000http://christineotis.com/?p=3608Please join us for Gallery Night, and share a glass of wine with the artists while browsing beautiful art on September 14th from 5-8pm!

Check out my photographs, and paintings, and see the work of other artists, and check out our Facebook Event page.

We’ll have Gallery Night every second Wednesday of the month, see the dates below:

]]>http://christineotis.com/gallery-night-at-the-art-gallery-in-naples/feed/0Author Interview: Joan Silber: Fools and Improvementhttp://christineotis.com/author-interview-joan-silber-fool-and-improvement/
http://christineotis.com/author-interview-joan-silber-fool-and-improvement/#respondThu, 04 Aug 2016 16:25:21 +0000http://christineotis.com/?p=3487Joan Silber is a celebrated author who has received acclaim for her work as a novelist and a short story writer. Her short fiction has been chosen for an O. Henry Prize three times, twice for a Pushcart Prize, and once for Best American Short Stories. She has been a recipient of an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and it should come as no surprise that her first novel, Household Words, won the PEN/Hemingway Award. Among her other books, Fools was on the Long List for the National Book Award and was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award, Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Story Prize, and The Size of the World was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Prize in Fiction, and was one of Seattle Times’ ten best books of fiction of 2008. Her other works of fiction include In the City, In My Other Life, Lucky Us, and her non-fiction work from Graywolf Press is part of “The Art of” series, The Art of Time in Fiction.

Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, Ploughshares, The Paris Review, Epoch, Agni, and Northwestern Review.

She is currently teaching at Sarah Lawrence College and Warren Wilson College. She has also taught at New York University, the University of Utah, Boston University, and the 92nd Street Y. Her summers have included teaching and conferences at Napa Valley, Bread Loaf, Indiana University, Manhattanville College, Stonecoast, Aspen, and Sarah Lawrence College.

This is the second half of my interview with Joan Silber.

Otis: You had mentioned you wanted to talk about time in an email you had written to me previous to this interview. What did you mean by that?

Silber: People often ask me about it because I’ve written a book, The Art of Time in Fiction, in Graywolf’s “art of” series. I myself like to use long times in short stories—I often write “biographical stories” that span lifetimes. I want to get to that longer perspective, which isn’t given in a single moment–so you see the changes someone goes through over a long period of time. I’m more interested in that than in the changes that happen in one scene.

Otis: Do you use in your writing what you observe in people?The end carries the meaning; readers have to know what they’re walking away with, so I do a lot of work on the endings.

Silber: I’m using my ideas of what life is in my fiction. Your beliefs come through.

Otis: How do you decide to end your stories?

Silber: I usually know where they are going to end in time, but actually writing the ending is difficult. They sometimes end too abruptly. I have a friend who is my reader, and she often says, “You need more here.” The end carries the meaning; readers have to know what they’re walking away with, so I do a lot of work on the endings.

Otis: So, do you know your endings beforehand?

Silber: In terms of plot I usually know where they are going to end. In terms of the phrasing and the feeling, I don’t always know.

Otis: How do you figure that out?

Silber: From doing it over and over. There isn’t a method. If it comes out wrong, I rework it, trying to get it.

Otis: I know you worked with Grace Paley. How much did she influence your work?

Silber: I was writing poetry when I was Grace’s student. She challenged us—the poetry students—to write a short story for her. I spent a long time on it, and I liked it so much it made me want to write fiction later. Grace always used to say: “Fiction is always about character.” Years later I left poetry because I wanted to talk about people.

Grace also thought a story should be organized like a poem. She wasn’t very into plot.

Otis: When you say organized like a poem, what exactly do you mean?

Silber: It seems less clear to me now than it did at the time! I think she wanted to emphasize that a narrative can follow a sequence of key images and key moments of feeling.

Otis: How much has poetry influenced your fiction?

Silber: I did want to be a poet when I was younger, and I still pay close attention to each sentence. I don’t read as much poetry as I used to.

Otis: What other writers or creative people influenced your writing? Two contemporary writers who are friends of mine, and whose books I admire and learn from, are Charles Baxter and Andrea Barrett.

Silber: Chekhov is my mentor, and I love Alice Munro.

Otis: When you’re writing, are you also reading? Or is reading done at a separate time from writing?

Silber: I always love Colm Tóibín, and I loved A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which I thought was stupendous. I just taught Lily King’s Euphoria to my class, and it’s wonderful. Those are recent books I especially like. I also liked Anthony Marra’s The Tsar of Love and Techno. Two contemporary writers who are friends of mine, and whose books I admire and learn from, are Charles Baxter and Andrea Barrett. Andrea reads my manuscripts and has been very helpful.

Otis: How much do you write before you give your manuscript or short story to an editor? How does your editing process work for you?

Silber: As done as I can make it before I show it to anyone. I use my friends in the earlier stages. Even with friends, I don’t show a story or a chapter until it has reached the end.

Otis: Do you feel writing a short story is easier to write than a novel?

Silber: Well, I’m working on a novel now, and I’m just finishing it. I would say the novel is harder, yes.

Otis: What aspects of writing a novel make it harder?

Silber: I’m not entirely sure why.

I do love to read novels. One of the reasons I wanted to do a novel is that I wanted to avoid doing the same thing.

I found my own way with short stories, and I think this novel has its own form—it’s just taken me a while to find it.

Otis: How long has it taken you to write this novel?

Silber: It has taken me four years.I don’t get blocked like I did when I was young. When I was young, I often had what I would call resistance, when I’d sit down and I wouldn’t be able to do anything. Now I’m more professional about it.

Otis: When can we expect to see it?

Silber: I’m just finishing it now, so it won’t be too soon!

Otis: In what ways do you challenge yourself as a writer? Do you have goals to write outside of your comfort zone? Do you do that regularly?

Silber: Going back to the novel form was a way of challenging myself. I think it’s always harder than you think it’s going to be. I’m trying not to do the same thing, but still use the strengths I already have, so it’s difficult.

Otis: Do you ever become blocked? Or is it more free flowing for you?

Silber: I don’t get blocked like I did when I was young. When I was young, I often had what I would call resistance, when I’d sit down and I wouldn’t be able to do anything. Now I’m more professional about it. There are certain times during the day I use for writing. I’m writing during that time, even if the work isn’t anything I want to use later. The work has its ups and downs but I’m much more used to that now.

Otis: What is the best time of day for you to write?

Silber: Between lunch and dinner. I know a lot of people do mornings, but I’m not a morning person. I do mindless tasks during the morning, and once I’m finished with lunch, I’m cued in. I’m probably not really going until about 2 or 3pm, and I stop at 7pm.

Otis: Do you write and then edit? Or do you think your thoughts through before you put your words down?

Silber: All of the above. I rewrite each sentence as I go, which is what students are told not to do. But for me, I go back and rewrite every time I start, and that’s how I get into it. I don’t do rough drafts.

Otis: When you have your ideas, do you immediately write them down, or do you let them simmer in your head and figure them out before you write?

Silber: If I’m starting something new, I take as many notes as I can, but that’s an interesting question, because I don’t know how I know when I’m ready to start. Sometimes it comes to me by actual lines of text rather than rough ideas. I’d certainly stress maintaining your own integrity. I sometimes feel there is too much emphasis on polishing. The heart of the matter is going deeper. I think people don’t often ask enough of themselves. Go as deep as you can.

Otis: How do titles come to you? Is this something that also comes to you in the idea process, or comes later?

Silber: Titles are difficult for me, and usually they come late. The book I’m finishing now is finally called Improvement, which I’m pleased with.

Otis: You said that it takes you about 3 months or more to write a short story, so how would you describe your writing process in completing the story, is it something you write every day?

Silber: I teach a couple days of the week during the school year and I’m not writing on those days.

Silber: Yes, and I’ve just gone back to Warren Wilson after many years of not teaching there, and I love it.

Otis: Are there differences between the places and the students you have?

Silber: I mostly deal with grad students now. The students are mostly older at Warren Wilson because they are students who have working lives, or family lives, so they are doing low residency program. With Sarah Lawrence they are based near New York; with Warren Wilson, they are more all over the country.

Otis: You have received a number of different fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Did you have help in applying for those fellowships, were you just applying for them, or did someone bring that to your attention; how did you receive them?

Silber: In the old days, I would apply for things like a Guggenheim, or an NEA, but in recent years, awards (which are different from grants) come about because the book has been submitted by the publisher. So that part is easier as I get older.

Otis: What would you say to other writers who are starting out, and are looking for a fellowship, or a grant?

Silber: It was hard for me to get published in the early years, and has gotten easier in the past 15 years for me, so it’s important to say to writers—stick with it.

I’d certainly stress maintaining your own integrity. I sometimes feel there is too much emphasis on polishing. The heart of the matter is going deeper. I think people don’t often ask enough of themselves. Go as deep as you can.

On a more practical level—I just heard an editor say he doesn’t like cover letters that go on too long. Don’t oversell yourself is the advice I’d give. The culture tends to over-value self-promotion.

Otis: How would you advise other writers about low residency, or an MFA program?

Silber: It depends on their lives. At Sarah Lawrence, we have weekly classes and one-on-one conferences, and at Warren Wilson I get their manuscripts by email, and I give my detailed responses by email. They are both great programs, and I have great colleagues at both programs. At Sarah Lawrence the students have two years of living around each other, which differs from Warren Wilson, but at both places, students make important friendships.

Otis: Is there anything you’d like to add that I haven’t asked?

Silber: The bad news is how hard it is. It takes much more work for the smallest piece of prose than what anyone ever thinks. The good news is you can fix stuff that isn’t good enough yet, which you can’t always do in real life.

Joan Silber is currently working on her novel, Improvement.

]]>http://christineotis.com/author-interview-joan-silber-fool-and-improvement/feed/0Author Interview: Joan Silberhttp://christineotis.com/author-interview-joan-silber/
http://christineotis.com/author-interview-joan-silber/#commentsSat, 23 Jul 2016 17:47:48 +0000http://christineotis.com/?p=3426Joan Silber is a celebrated author who has received acclaim for her work as a novelist and a short story writer. Her short fiction has been chosen for an O. Henry Prize three times, twice for a Pushcart Prize, and once for Best American Short Stories. She has been a recipient of an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and it should come as no surprise that her first novel, Household Words, won the PEN/Hemingway Award. Among her other books, Fools was on the Long List for the National Book Award and was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award, Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Story Prize, and The Size of the World was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Prize in Fiction, and was one of Seattle Times’ ten best books of fiction of 2008. Her other works of fiction include In the City, In My Other Life, Lucky Us, and her non-fiction work from Graywolf Press is part of “The Art of” series, The Art of Time in Fiction.

Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, Ploughshares, The Paris Review, Epoch, Agni, and Northwestern Review.

She is currently teaching at Sarah Lawrence College and Warren Wilson College. She has also taught at New York University, the University of Utah, Boston University, and the 92nd Street Y. Her summers have included teaching and conferences at Napa Valley, Bread Loaf, Indiana University, Manhattanville College, Stonecoast, Aspen, and Sarah Lawrence College.

Christine Otis: I really enjoy your work. Your stories remind me of older work like Anton Chekhov, Alice Munro, Eudora Welty, and Edith Wharton. There is a slow methodical pacing to your stories, with a reveal, and it’s the pacing that draws the reader into the story. How do you manage that type of pacing?

Joan Silber: Thank you. I think this pretty much comes naturally to me. I don’t think of it as slow pacing. When I read novels now it seems to me they linger more exhaustively in certain scenes than I do.

I’m still more of a short story writer—I move around somewhat quickly; I cover a lot of time in a short space—so the slower pace you’re feeling may be within the scenes. That gives a different sense of event.

I think if you’re always writing about people you like, and approve of, I think that’s a weak position for a fiction writer to be in—you want your characters to get into trouble, and do stupid things.Otis: So would you say, for you, it is the character development that comes first, or the plot? Or do they go hand in hand?

Silber: I usually have a situation roughly in mind. The best example I can give is in Ideas of Heaven. I decided I wanted to do another story from the viewpoint of the mean dancing teacher from the first story, “My Shape.” I knew who he was to Alice, the main character, but I wanted to know who he was to himself—this became the second story, “The High Road.” I knew the story was going to have to move toward an episode more significant to him than she ever was. Once I had characters he was in love with at points in the story, it began to find its shape.

Otis: Is that true for a lot of characters in your stories, to have the story shaped around love?

Silber: For me, that’s one of the highest topics definitely. Not always, but it’s in the story somewhere.

Otis: With Rhoda in Household Words, you stated you didn’t particularly like her; I’m referring to what was written in the back of the book. Is it difficult to write characters you don’t like?

Silber: I don’t think I would have put it that way.

Otis: Okay, how would you put it?

Silber: I wouldn’t say I disliked her, my intention was to get inside her head, which requires sympathy. I think if you’re always writing about people you like, and approve of, I think that’s a weak position for a fiction writer to be in—you want your characters to get into trouble, and do stupid things.I learned from Chekhov—Chekhov is wonderful at presenting characters we don’t like initially, but we become so intimate with them, we do like them in time.

Otis: So is there a difference between writing characters you have more sympathy with than others; if you like a character is there a different way you approach that character than one you’re not so fond of?

Silber: I learned from Chekhov—Chekhov is wonderful at presenting characters we don’t like initially, but we become so intimate with them, we do like them in time. Sometimes he pulls back at the end of the story and reminds us why we didn’t like the character in the first place. This doesn’t always happen, but I’m interested in that.

In the story about missionaries in Ideas of Heaven, the main character, Liz, was based on letters I read in my research. I used Eva Jane Price’s China Journal, 1889-1900. I wanted to be in sympathy with the missionaries. They go thousands of miles to this strange place and try to spread their own religion and culture—which would certainly not be my way (I’m not even Christian). A 21st century person can knock such people, but I didn’t want to do that; I wanted to get under her in some way.

As a child, I spent a lot of time reading Louise May Alcott, and I knew the logic of her thinking, which helped me here. I wanted to go outside clichés about someone like Liz. When I teach, I tell the students it’s not the job of literature to tell people what they already know. What they already know is received opinion, the agreed-upon assumptions of their time and place.

Otis: When you write your characters, do you inhabit them when you’re writing, or are you separate from them when you write?

Silber: Both, I think. I try very much to be with them; I do a very close point of view. My central characters, I’m pretty much inside of, but I do see them separately. They aren’t me.

Otis: How much time does it take for you to design your characters in your stories?

Silber: It varies, but it’s never fast. I would say I spend maybe three months on a story, or longer.

Otis: How much research do you put into your stories? When do you know when to actually stop the research to do writing, or do you do the writing and the research at the same time?

Silber: I do a lot of research first to get me going, and also I’m looking stuff up as I’m working. In the early stages, I might read books, then I’m working and going online checking stuff.

Otis: How do you not get bogged down in the research aspect?

Silber: I like getting bogged down.

Otis: When do you know when to pull away from the research?

Silber: You don’t entirely know what the piece is about when you start it, and that’s when it’s confusing. Once you have it [your story] more focused, what emotions you want the story to carry, then it is easier to figure out what you want to use.

Otis: Would you say you have your idea first before you do your research? Or are you reading, and you stumble upon something that triggers an idea?

Silber: Both. For the missionary story, I was about to take a trip to China, and one of my friends gave me a book by Jonathan Spence, one of the American experts on China. It was accounts of various foreigners who went to China from Marco Polo on. In that book, there was a chapter on missionary wives. The last book I wrote, Fools, begins with a story about anarchists in the 1920s and uses the real-life character of Dorothy Day, an extraordinary woman who helped found the Catholic Worker, a movement that set up houses for the homeless and had its own radical newspaper.

I was already writing stories about romantic love, and religious feelings and how they cross each other. While I wrote “Ideas of Heaven,” I kept looking up things about China.

Otis: Did you eventually visit China?

Silber: Yes. While I was there, I was in a city called Luoyang, and early in the morning you can watch people practice martial arts. (They also do this where I live now—I live near Chinatown in Lower Manhattan.) While I was standing around there, some guy came up to me—an old guy—who wanted to practice his English, and had English students, and it turned out when he heard I was a professor, he asked me if I’d heard of Oberlin College. The missionaries I was working on were from Oberlin! I gave the college another name in the story I wrote, but he had been one of their students from the 1930s. It was a great coincidence and he referred me to a classmate in America, who was with him in China at that time, who was able to direct me toward some research sources. It was very helpful.

Otis: Have coincidences like this happen to you before?

Silber: The last book I wrote, Fools, begins with a story about anarchists in the 1920s and uses the real-life character of Dorothy Day, an extraordinary woman who helped found the Catholic Worker, a movement that set up houses for the homeless and had its own radical newspaper. I was interested in the earlier phase of her life when a pregnancy led her to religion, and in reading about her I discovered that the father of her child (also an anarchist) was related to an old friend of mine! My friend Elspeth did remember him—quite fondly—and gave me a wonderful sense of him, which I used in the story.

Otis: How do you weave your stories with your characters, so you get to see a broader spectrum of how one life affects another? Are you purposely making those decisions before you begin, or is it more organic?

Silber: One way stories get linked is to take a minor character from an earlier story and make him or her the major character of another story. I love the irony—this person you’ve totally forgotten about comes in later.

There is a wonderful Chekhov story called “Anna on the Neck”—a young girl comes from a family where the father drinks too much and wastes all their money, so the women of the town marry the girl off to a stuffy older guy who has money. She doesn’t like him. Through a sequence of events, she takes up with other, more glamorous men, and her life is freer and more luxurious.

At the very end of the story, her father reappears again on the edges of the story, and you’ve forgotten all about him. It’s a wonderful moment in the story. The father is drunk, and he’s trying to wave to her while she’s in a fancy carriage, and her brothers are trying to hold him back from doing that. I loved that. I love the effect it had on me, so I wanted to get that sense that what you’ve forgotten about comes back into the story again. I’m looking to do that; I’m trying to find the way to do that.

Otis: So how do you do it?

Silber: Sometimes I know ahead of time of how I want to bring that character in again, and sometimes it occurs to me as I’m working.

Otis: In The Size of the World, how did you come to focus on the defective screw as a focal point of the story that brings all of your characters together?

Silber: That one, the first story, which takes place in Vietnam, is based mostly on my brother. He was an engineer, who was in Vietnam, sent to trouble-shoot problems with guidance systems.

We’ve always had historical novels, but not so much historical short fiction. Andrea Barrett was a great pioneer of that about 20 years ago.Otis: So the defective screw part was just something you came up with because your brother was an engineer in Vietnam?

Silber: Yes, I made that up. My brother was investigating why the navigation systems were going off course—I don’t know what he found out. I knew, of course, that Bangkok was used for R & R [Rest & Relaxation, or Rest & Recovery] by U.S. soldiers. I had traveled to Thailand, and really loved it, so I wanted to use it in some way. And later in the book I was able draw on different accounts of 19th century travelers in Thailand.

When I’m linking stories, I make them up as I go along—the great thing about the form is that one story can give rise to another.

Otis: What made you decide to write about AIDS in Lucky Us?

Silber: I was working as a volunteer for Gay Men’s Health Crisis, so I was close to the epidemic in the years I wrote the novel (2001).

Otis: How do you decide to write about a specific era? Are you drawn to certain eras and feel compelled to write about them, or do you fall into it?

Silber: I’ve always loved history. Among other things, it gives you a sense that now is not the whole story. Our own era is always a very incomplete picture of how humans live.

We’ve always had historical novels, but not so much historical short fiction. Andrea Barrett was a great pioneer of that about 20 years ago.

Otis: Would you say historical fiction is your favorite thing to write?

Silber: No, I love it, but it’s not an exclusive love.

Otis: What are other things do you love to write about?

Silber: I do love to write about romantic love and longing, and I’m still very interested in religious feelings and ideas. We don’t have much of a language for religious feelings, outside the traditional vocabulary of institutions.

Please check back next week for the continuation of my interview with Joan Silber where she discusses novel writing, the importance of a story’s ending, fellowships, and the writers who influenced her work.

Chris Silk covered my first exhibit about a year ago, which appeared in Naples Daily News.

As for my story, it began when I was very young, probably around 4 years old. When I looked at the inside of a flower, I was mesmerized by the stamen, the pistil, and the petals. I was equally fascinated by the colors, and contours, and the various shapes and textures.

In high school, with a camera in hand, I struggled to capture it, not having enough photography experience.

Many years later, I returned to what originally caught my attention, only this time I achieved my goal.

You know what they say about art, you have to see it in person to get the full effect! Please come by for a visit, or make an appointment. I would love to see you there!

]]>http://christineotis.com/dennis-goodman-gallery/feed/0Cooking, Libations, and the Written Wordhttp://christineotis.com/cooking-libations-and-the-written-word/
http://christineotis.com/cooking-libations-and-the-written-word/#respondThu, 31 Mar 2016 22:54:44 +0000http://christineotis.com/?p=3367I like to be creative with food, and enjoy learning about spices, cuisines, and what I can do to manipulate them to please the palate. It is similar to what I do with words, and visual images, playing around with what I know, and what I don’t, to please the senses in some way, or to provoke a reaction.

Food tells a story too, about the people living in their culture. I think of authors who incorporate food into their writing, Laura Esquivel comes to mind, as does Kate Christensen. I wonder why we don’t see more food in the written word; why it seems so absent when it is so integral? Food appears in a lot of art, but why is so much of it missing in literature?

One of the things I realized in my creative life was, what was missing.

It was the combination of food with my writing, and having people over, feeding them, afterwards followed by conversation, writing, and being creative, that made me feel more grounded and happier. I think of other artists who have had salons, like Gertrude Stein, and there is nothing more filling than having people over for meals with libations, words running around the table from mouth to mouth, while satiation takes hold. Now, this is one of my many goals: to create a salon for creatives.

Cheers!

]]>http://christineotis.com/cooking-libations-and-the-written-word/feed/0Building Writing Relationshipshttp://christineotis.com/building-writing-relationships/
http://christineotis.com/building-writing-relationships/#respondMon, 29 Feb 2016 22:52:16 +0000http://christineotis.com/?p=3349I attended a recent live web seminar through Writers Digest University. The seminar, From Short Story to Story Collection: How to Craft a Collection of Short Fiction That Gets Published and Sells, with Jacob M. Appel, talked about attracting attention by promoting the work of other authors, writing book reviews, submitting to contests, knowing acquisition librarians, and building relationships.

Mr. Appel also emphasized the importance of attending conferences, low-residency programs, and finding a mentor.

Building relationships is of key importance in attracting attention to you and your work, and I’d like to mention how Chuck Sambuchino tweeted me about the 2016 Florida Writing Workshops.

I interviewed Mr. Sambuchino a couple of years ago, and I was pleasantly surprised by, and appreciated his recent tweet, informing me of the March 25th and 26th events, which will take place in Tampa, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

At this event, you can pitch to literary agents, editors, have questions answered, and meet other writers.

I wouldn’t have known about this event if Mr. Sambuchino hadn’t tweeted me, which is why building relationships is so valuable.

Christine Sneed was named a finalist for the 2010 Los Angeles Times book prize in the first-fiction category. Her first book, Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry, won AWP’s 2009 Grace Paley Prize, was awarded Ploughshares’ John C. Zacharis prize, and was chosen as Book of the Year by the Chicago Writers Association in the traditionally published fiction category.

Her second book, the novel Little Known Facts, won the Society of Midland Authors Award for the best adult fiction 2013, was named one o the Booklists‘s top ten debut novels of 2013, and best new book by a local author by Chicago Magazine.

She has published stories in Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, New England Review, Ploughshares, Pleiades, Glimmer Train, Massachusetts Review, The Southern Review and a number of other journals.

Paris, He Said, (Bloomsbury USA, May 2015 & Bloomsbury UK, Oct. 2015) is a novel set mostly in contemporary Paris, and focuses on a woman in her early 30s who accepts the invitation of an older man who offers her time and financial support to live with him in Paris and work as an artist.

Her fourth book, the story collection, The Virginity of Famous Men, will be out in September 2016 from Bloomsbury.

I interviewed Christine Sneed for my first podcast, which was exciting for both of us. Andy Stitt, of Deliberate Media Solutions, was the podcast editor.

]]>http://christineotis.com/author-interview-christine-sneed-paris-he-said/feed/0Christine Sneed was named a finalist for the 2010 Los Angeles Times book prize in the first-fiction category. Her first book, Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry, won AWP’s 2009 Grace Paley Prize, was awarded Ploughshares’ John C.Christine Sneed was named a finalist for the 2010 Los Angeles Times book prize in the first-fiction category. Her first book, Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry, won AWP’s 2009 Grace Paley Prize, was awarded Ploughshares’ John C. Zacharis prize, and was chosen as Book of the Year by the Chicago Writers Association in the traditionally published fiction category.
Her second book, the novel Little Known Facts, won the Society of Midland Authors Award for the best adult fiction 2013, was named one o the Booklists's top ten debut novels of 2013, and best new book by a local author by Chicago Magazine.
She has published stories in Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, New England Review, Ploughshares, Pleiades, Glimmer Train, Massachusetts Review, The Southern Review and a number of other journals.
Paris, He Said, (Bloomsbury USA, May 2015 & Bloomsbury UK, Oct. 2015) is a novel set mostly in contemporary Paris, and focuses on a woman in her early 30s who accepts the invitation of an older man who offers her time and financial support to live with him in Paris and work as an artist.
Her fourth book, the story collection, The Virginity of Famous Men, will be out in September 2016 from Bloomsbury.
I interviewed Christine Sneed for my first podcast, which was exciting for both of us. Andy Stitt, of Deliberate Media Solutions, was the podcast editor.
]]>Christine Otisno18:20Author Interview: Aisha Toombs: Nerdi Bunnyhttp://christineotis.com/author-interview-aisha-toombs-nerdi-bunny/
http://christineotis.com/author-interview-aisha-toombs-nerdi-bunny/#commentsSat, 12 Dec 2015 04:38:49 +0000http://christineotis.com/?p=3280Aisha Toombs is a teacher, author, and bee-enthusiast. Nerdi Bunny and the Busy Bee Bully Bear Business marks her debut as a children’s book writer. She has written articles and reviews for various websites, written a one-act play for the 2008 GLO New Light Festival in Philadelphia and previously self-published an anthology of poetry and short stories. She currently resides outside of Philadelphia, PA where she lives with her family and teaches English.

I interviewed Aisha Toombs via Skype.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Nerdi Bunny and the Busy Bee Bully Bear Business.” I understand you have a love of bees. How did this love influence your story?

As a young child, I was very scared of bees. Understand I didn’t know the difference between a yellow jacket, or a bee, so I would swat at anything yellow with wings. That stayed with me—not knowing the difference, and swatting at them—and when I got older I guess you could say I became obsessed over understanding them, and why they were important to us when I saw the Häagen-Dazs Ice Cream Honeybee campaign. I asked myself, “What is this about? Honeybees pollinating one third of our food supply?” I got so intrigued about bees importance, I immersed myself in bee knowledge. I can now tell the difference between a honeybee and a carpenter bee, and why they are so vital to our food chain. I don’t recommend doing any “hands-on” bee research especially if you have allergies—leave that to the apiarists. But I did sponsor a hive this year through The Honeybee Conservancy.

I’ve become the bee police and tell my friends don’t swat at the bees. Without the bees, we don’t have this, and I would explain to them what we wouldn’t have without them.

I’m a high school English teacher, but I tutor younger children in reader and writing. As an educator, I think it’s very important for students to know about their planet, and I want students thinking about those things and how they can help their own communities. My high school students think it’s awesome that their teacher is a writer and they want to read the book or get it for a sibling. I haven’t told my younger students about it yet, but I will soon.

How did you come up with your main character, Nerdi?

Nerdi came to me when I was about eight or nine years old. I can’t draw, but I drew this very crude-looking bunny with glasses and gave it to my mother. At the time, I didn’t know Nerdi was going to come back around. A few years ago, I was asked to write something for my friends’ publishing company and I thought back to that seed planted at a young age. As an adult, I knew I wanted to see a character as a bunny that sort of represented my culture to some degree so you see my afro, my glasses, and some of who I am in Nerdi. It [the story] was very painful at times because it wasn’t doing what I wanted it to…. It really was a push, push kind of thing.

Nerdi started out as a picture book. I didn’t think I could write anything longer than a couple pages. My brain doesn’t allow me to sometimes. I think that comes from so much academic writing, which I’ve done for such a long time, so to take that turn into fiction was really hard. It was difficult for me to do anything longer than a short short story. I was actually afraid to do something longer; but I had a really good feeling about Nerdi—that she could be something to help students to learn about their environment. I took a class at Children’s Book Academy and learned how to stretch the story to improve it, and crank Nerdi out.

The only thing I can equate it to is childbirth, although I’m not a mother, so I guess it would be more like Zeus when he had Athena coming out of his head. It was very painful at times because it wasn’t doing what I wanted it to. It wasn’t coming out the way I wanted it to come out. It really was a push, push kind of thing.

My niece is an avid reader, who reads above her grade level. She’s going on nine, and she’s really interested in science and facts. Nerdi is really a hodge-podge of all those ideas.

I was so happy that I finished it.

I have tons of stuff that I started, and unfinished manuscripts, but Nerdi needed to be finished.

Nerdi’s voice is very strong, and it sounds like a nine-year old would sound, which is the appeal for readers. Did you have that specific age group in mind when you wrote this story, and how did you come up with the voice for telling the story?

Nerdi started out with a much younger voice, to be read to children rather than children reading it themselves. As I started expanding the story, Nerdi definitely sounds a lot like my niece. In my head, if this was an animated piece, it would sound like my niece, so it’s really my niece’s voice coming out when Nerdi speaks.

I would like to point out some excerpts from your book, which I loved:

You have trees having dandruff, bears hugging Goldilocks dolls, you mention President O’Llama, and the “Bumble Honey Boogie, ” and from page 15: “When bunnies become very excited, they get the hippity-hops. It’s like the hiccups, but in their feet.” I thought that was beautiful. How did you come up with these ideas?I love playing with alliteration, figurative language and rhyming. Hippity-hops felt catchy.

I love President Obama, so obviously, O’Llama is a tribute to him. I said, ‘Gosh, if he could be animal, what would he be?’ I played with words, so I was playing with how a word can sound like something else. I said, ‘What’s an animal that sounds like Obama?’ I was going through the animal encyclopedia of my brain, I came up with Llama. I shared that with my husband, a couple best friends, and other people, and they said, ‘That’s so great!’

With hippity-hop, I wanted something different that sounded exciting. If I were a bunny, bunnies bounce, but what would a bunny have? To say she was bouncy wasn’t enough. I love playing with alliteration, figurative language and rhyming. Hippity-hops felt catchy.

The Bumble Honey Boogie, I don’t honestly remember. In Mira’s class (The Chapter Book Alchemist) you get a lot of feedback from your classmates. One of the suggestions from folks in my group was, what are things that kids could chant, something kids would remember? I did a tune in my head, and put words to it. My niece comes up with songs on the fly. I used to do that when I was kid, so I just applied it to my writing.

You have your character, Nerdi, speaking the truth. How important do you feel it is to have “spoken truth” in a children’s story? The example I’m referring to is from page 34, and it’s the dialogue between Jimmy the bee and Nerdi, about Nerdi’s plan:

“Do you think this will work?” asked Jimmy.

“No,” said Nerdi, “Nothing is ever one hundred percent, but I’m very confident.”

How do you think that shapes a child’s perspective? since Nerdi is admitting that it might not work, but she is still going to try?

Teaching in an urban environment, many children are often met with defeat, and once you’re defeated you don’t try again. The reality is, that you continue to experience defeat in your adulthood. You can’t necessarily win all the time, but you have to keep trying. If you don’t, you’ll never know. What’s the alternative?

I think it’s better to try, and know something doesn’t work, than not try at all. That’s an important ideal I think children need to have. You need to keep putting in the effort to get what you want, even if you fail, and that’s okay. We’re confronted with self-doubt and that danger of experiencing hurt—not being successful at something. It’s important to keep trying and I think Nerdi represents that; she knows success isn’t always the reality, but recognizes the importance to be confident and try.Children need encouragement and to learn that their ideas need to be brought forth into the world.

Being told that something is not good enough doesn’t work on its own. Children need encouragement and to learn that their ideas need to be brought forth into the world. If they work, fantastic, if not, okay; come up with another idea. You have to be persistent.

You also have Nerdi speaking to an audience about the significance of bees, which is from page 42. She’s following President O’Llama’s speech, so she’s nervous. Again, she shows her confidence, and says: “It’s important to remember that many bees are really nice, so let them work and do not swat. Please follow that advice. Thank you.”

That’s a wonderful message to send to children—to have confidence, and to tell them not to be afraid, to be understanding. How much thought did you put into this when you wrote your story? Did you think about the messages you wanted this book to have before writing it, or did it happen in the process? How did you get the pieces to fit within the framework of the story?

They really came out organically. I didn’t necessarily set out to have that happen. As I got to know that character, and what she would do, how she’d react, I think that’s where that attitude comes from, and again in the editing process, what kind of message did I want the child, my reader, to walk away with? Something positive. It could be about the bees, the bears, or ‘I can try and do something.’

I very much wanted my readers to gain something positive.

I haven’t heard about The Children’s Book Academy. Can you tell me more about them?

You can visit the The Children’s Book Academy online. Dr. Mira Reisberg offers many classes throughout the year. The class I took, The Chapter Book Alchemist was co-taught by author Hillary Homzie. It was a very positive and amazing experience; very professional, honest and constructive, which I loved. It’s online and they have webinars, pitch weeks, an option for a one on one critique with either Dr. Reisberg or Ms. Homzie, and had writing groups, which helped with ideas and providing feedback. I received so much more in those five weeks about completion, and what I needed to do to craft a solid story than I would have gotten on my own. I don’t think I would have finished without their guidance. They felt I had very strong pieces to the story, and helped me to expand on that. It was a very nurturing experience.

How did you get this book published? What did that entail?

In the writing class there was a competition. We had to do a pitch in 50 words or less, and my pitch was one of the pitch winners. The prize was being able to send in our first 5 pages and our synopsis, to an agent that was a guest speaker in the course. I was waiting, and waiting, so I reached out again to the agent in an email. The agent had some constructive comments, but he didn’t want to represent it. I said to myself, ‘Okay, what am I going to do now?’

I had self-published before—an anthology of poetry—it didn’t go as well as I would have liked, but I knew Nerdi was something I wanted to put out there either by a publisher, or by my own hand.

I came across an amazing company called Book Fuel. They walked me through everything I didn’t necessarily know the first time I self-published from doing a substantive edit to a proofing edit, to finding an illustrator. I didn’t have to do anything, except give them ideas of what I wanted and say yea, or nay on the results. It was seamless. They handle all the distribution, and I pay them a fee for a year, which is pretty reasonable considering everything they provided, and I maintain all my rights.

They found the illustrator, and I cried when I received the illustration of my character. He nailed it. All he had to go by was a picture of glasses, Wally the bunny (a bunny with pigtails), but I wanted the bunny to have afro puffs, I wanted a purple jumper, carrots on her glasses…it was like the illustrator went into my brain and saw exactly what I wanted. I couldn’t believe it. Nerdi looked like me, and the illustrator had never seen me, so I knew I was doing the right thing.

I could have continued to send queries out, tried to get an agent, and submitted to major publishing houses, but I didn’t feel like I had forever. I didn’t want to sit on this story, so I did it myself.

It really was painless, and I’m so happy with the result.

InkDrops is my publisher, and they are helping me with marketing.

I want you to know my step-son really loved your book. He’s very excited that I’m speaking with you. He gave your book a big thumbs up; he doesn’t do that with all the stories he reads. So you hit your mark!

That’s so wonderful to hear! That makes me feel so good!

I know that’s what any author wants to hear; that they hit their target audience.This is a series, so Nerdi’s next adventure will probably be in the Bayou.

Yes, absolutely! That is the highest compliment!

So, what future books, or writing can we expect from you?

This is a series, so Nerdi’s next adventure will probably be in the Bayou. I went to Louisiana for my Honeymoon, and fell in love with New Orleans. We took a trip and learned why the bayou is so important, so in her next story she will be visiting her jackrabbit cousins in the Louisiana Bayou.

Do you have a time frame for the next Nerdi adventure?

I’d like to get it out by next year. I just started doing my chapter synopses, so hopefully by this time next year it will be published.

Aisha Toombs’ book, Nerdi Bunny and the Busy Bee Bully Bear Business, is available for paperback purchase on Amazon, and on iBooks, Kobo, Kindle, GooglePlay, and Barnes and Noble for download.

]]>http://christineotis.com/author-interview-aisha-toombs-nerdi-bunny/feed/1Nichehttp://christineotis.com/niche/
http://christineotis.com/niche/#respondWed, 04 Nov 2015 21:23:29 +0000http://christineotis.com/?p=3186In my last blog post I mentioned about creating my niche. One important aspect is creating a logo design, so check out my logo at the top of the page!

Another aspect to creating my own market is that I’m continuously working on other venues for selling my artwork. I opened an Etsy store to sell my art pieces.

These pieces represent my photography, and creative designs. The samples shown here are my Christmas ornaments. These are glass ornaments made with acrylic ink, and are completed with offray, or wired ribbon.

Please feel free to check out my Etsy store, and maybe you’ll find something for you: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChristineOtis. On the item detail page, I provide information about the process in creating my Christmas ornaments.

Other art pieces are in the works, so continually check out my store for new items.

I’m still working on my short stories, which have been submitted to literary magazines. That’s a waiting game as I continuously work on the written form while working on my other creations.

Keep an eye out for my latest work, as well as my upcoming author interviews!

]]>http://christineotis.com/niche/feed/0Getting Therehttp://christineotis.com/getting-there/
http://christineotis.com/getting-there/#respondFri, 31 Jul 2015 23:59:30 +0000http://christineotis.com/?p=3177When I work from piece to piece, I think about what it is I want to say, and then I write it, or when working with my camera, I set the shots up and take hundreds of them. I give careful and deliberate thought to my work, and other times, I allow pure creativity to flow out with reckless abandon.

Another artist’s process might be a little different than my own, but the end product gives the appearance it was ready-made, that it was effortless to achieve the successful end.

Often what is not spoken, is the road to achieving the completed piece.

For example, I have been working on one short story for eight years. There are a few things to say about the amount of time it took.

First, I haven’t been satisfied with the end product, which has propelled me to continuously work on it.

Second, I haven’t consistently, day after day, worked on it. There have been times when out of the year, I worked very little in terms of writing.

Third, most of the work I did was inside my head, thinking about the angle, the way I had it written, the arch of the story, and the ending. It is during this processing time, it may feel like I lost my center, my focus.

I remind myself of those who have succeeded before me, and listen to what they say. Obstacles, setbacks, and failures are part of a successful road, and keeping those insights, and wisdom nearby is very helpful in maintaining focus, as well as the people I surround myself with—I need those positive vibes and insights higher than my thinking to reach a higher goal.

My goals are my dreams. I generally don’t tell people my dreams—not all of them. Why? I have experienced people rain on them, and it’s usually those closest to me that do (sometimes it just can’t be helped). I have found I’m better off keeping it to myself, and allowing the dream to germinate. At some point, I release the dream to the world.

Gillian Zoe Segal’s book, Getting There, is a book of mentors talking about their journeys to their successes. Some of the people in her book are Sara Blakely, Kathy Ireland, Matthew Weiner, and Warren Buffet.

Hearing, and reading what others say can be extremely helpful. Segal’s book can act as an aide-mémoire.

There is something I remind myself:

It’s my passion that motivates me, and keeps me going, and no matter how much I don’t fit in, there is a world where I do because I’m creating it.